Embroidered Palestine: A Stitched Narrative

Abstract

IntroductionIn studying folk creativity, unexpected day-to-day encounters sometime point the way to new research projects, while the emotions relating to such discoveries can become indispensable as analytical resources. Such was the case when during a casual chat at a sports center I happened to mention a research project in which I was involved, focusing on needlepoint embroidery (Salamon). Upon hearing the topic of my research, the man sitting next to me dismissed this kind of embroidery, only to go on to enthusiastically describe an embroidered wall hanging he recently came across in a Palestinian home in one of East Jerusalem's refugee neighborhoods.1My interlocutor, an Israeli man in his seventies, was impressed by the wall hanging's aesthetic style as well as, to use his own phrase, by surprising, even daring theme: an embroidered picture, composed entirely of Arabic written names of pre-1948 Palestinian villages in Jerusalem and its surroundings, which now formed part of the State of Israel.2 When he asked whether the piece was for sale, the owner answered that this piece, embroidered by his wife, will never be sold. It is priceless (see figure 1).Living in Jerusalem, I was familiar with a wide and varied range of Palestinian embroidery: dresses, pillows, handbags, and even wall hangings, mainly preserving traditional patterns (as seen in figures 2 and 3). Yet it seemed to me that this vivid story was describing an object that lay at the intersection between the craft of embroidery, memories of a lost patrimony, and the uncompromising declaration of ownership-all wrapped up with intense emotions. Naturally, this provoked my curiosity. Asking Palestinian friends about this form of embroidery, I learned they were all familiar with it and, in addition, were not surprised to hear that non-Palestinians rarely got a glimpse of this type of handicraft. Moreover, they introduced me to an even more explicit design-that of an embroidered map of Palestine, called Tatriz khartat Falastin (?^k^ie jjjki), Embroidered Palestine Maps, made to be framed and hung on the walls of Palestinian homes.3Embroidered Palestine Maps are a loaded spectacle. The needlework is colorful and large, describing the borders of pre-1948 British-Mandate Palestine; place names and images are located in their respective geographic locations. The names of towns and cities of Palestine of that era are stitched in Arabic letters and pictorial images, while non-Palestinian towns and cities are ignored (as may be seen in figures 4 to 14).The discovery of this embroidery style enabled me to inquire into its stitched narrative and the sentiments associated with it. This article explores the voice arising out of this style of embroidered narrative and approaches the source of its distinctive potency. The research project on which this article is based focused on these embroidered maps from the Palestinian embroiderer's point of view. At the basis of this project was fieldwork conducted during 2010 and 2011 in Jerusalem and its vicinity both within the West Bank barrier and outside of it. The research was carried out with the assistance of two female Palestinian students and included the documentation of the embroidered maps together with accompanying in-depth interviews. The interviewees were asked to recount the path that brought them to embroider the maps, and the emotions that were associated with the act of their creation throughout the process.As this article will go on to demonstrate, the painful past and the conflicted reality in which these maps are embroidered and displayed is overburdened with competing narratives that seek to defeat and silence each other. The embroidered narrative operates within the multinarrative sounding board of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The land narrated by Embroidered Palestine, as I choose to name these maps, is the very same land discussed over and over in other narratives, from printed maps to the mainly verbally articulated forms of the different sides. …